


Humble Me

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2009 [8]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Lucy Being Awesome, introspective, ladies being awesome, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:01:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She humbles him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humble Me

**Author's Note:**

> Aryll requested Chronicles of Narnia/Doctor Who, Doctor/Lucy, _The Valiant._
> 
> 2009 repost.

+

The first time he meets Queen Lucy, the Valiant, she’s only thirteen years old. He gets lost on his way to the Maboon Cluster and finds her in a little glade somewhere in Narnia, where she proceeds to chatter his ear off before taking him home and asking her big brother if she can keep him.

He politely declines the offer, but stays for dinner and leaves with a heavy heart. Heavy enough, in fact, to cheat by jumping forward five years and sneaking up on a young woman with Lucy’s laughter and hair, kidnapping her into the far ends of space.

Not that she puts up much resistance, mind you. At least not after she has permission from all three of her loving, overbearing siblings to go off and adventure. 

The first place he takes her to is Barcelona, where they dance until dawn.

The second is Klom, where they anger the natives and have their first run. And oh, can Lucy run. 

The third through eighth go rather similar, fun and laughter and a quick escape when things get a bit hot. He sees all those worlds through the eyes of an eighteen-year-old queen and they are beautiful because Lucy is. Beautiful and brave.

He wonders why Aslan named her that, gave a little girl such a big, unwieldy title and on the ninth world he takes her to, he understands. It’s not too big for her, that title. Rather, it’s barely big enough.

They land and within minutes of their arrival, they realize that the people of this planet are dying. They feel dizzy, faint and wake with a bloody cough and a rash that puts acid burns to shame. Within a handful of hours, most of them are dead. No antidote, no cause, no relief. Only symptoms and a painful, crippling agony followed by death and the Doctor feels, deep down, the rise of that old desire to just turn and run.

Walk away. He is so good at that. But Lucy will hear none of it. She doesn’t have her Cordial, she jokes, but she has him and he will find the cause for the sudden dying and end it. He will. 

He promises and takes off with a few of the healthy, toward an old factory the natives suspect to be the source of the disease. Lucy stays behind. Someone needs to tend the sick, she tells him. And if she catches whatever they have, she can always get to her magic potion.

The next time he sees her he feels a century older. It took more than three days and most of the people that went with him to find the source – chemical tanks in a maze of tunnels, a recent earthquake, a few rats – and then a way to neutralize it. 

That’s the best he could do, neutralize it. He can’t save those that are infected and returns to the makeshift hospital where he left his Companion with heavy hearts, ready to give in to the desire to run. These are not his people dying here, for his people are already dead. He has seen enough death.

He asks where Lucy is, is told where to look and finally finds her between rows and rows of beds. She is dirty, sweaty and obviously exhausted, changing antiseptic bandages, moping brows, humming quietly and murmuring encouragements to the doomed. He wonders if she slept at all and knows the answer before he asks. 

Around her people die in droves, slowly, painfully, groping for her hand to hold, straining to hear her quiet song. So much agony. So much despair. He wants to avert his eyes and pretend he can’t see.

But then Lucy raises her head and notices him hovering in the doorway and through tears and sweat, she smiles at him.

Little Lucy Pevensie, barely eighteen, thrown to the endless reaches of space and time, smiles at him from an ocean of the dead and he understands why that big, funny lion named her that.

Valiant. 

He feels humbled.

+


End file.
